MENU Policy Analysis / Conference Reports Vice President Cheney: Address to The Washington Institute's Weinberg Founders Conference Oct 21, 2007 In-Depth Reports n October 21, 2007, Vice President Richard Cheney delivered a special address to The Washington Institute's O 2007 Weinberg Founders Conference. The following is a transcript of his remarks. The vice president was introduced by Institute Executive Committee member Roger Hertog. Thank you very much, Roger. Thanks for the kind words, and thank all of you for the welcome this morning. I've been looking forward to have the opportunity to join the conference. It's been my privilege, as Roger mentioned, over the years to address The Washington Institute a number of times. In fact, most of you knew me long before anyone called me, Darth Vader. I've been asked if that nickname bothers me, and the answer is, no. After all, Darth Vader is one of the nicer things I've been called recently. All of us do know each other rather well, and I see some good friends in the audience. And I, in particular, want to thank your president, Howard Berkowitz, Chairman Fred Lafer, and Chairman Emeritus Mike Stein, and Vice President Wally Stern. I also want to thank Barbi Weinberg, who is not here but whose work has been invaluable. She has the respect of all of us. I've gained much from the wisdom of many in the room today; people like Dennis Ross and, of course, Rob Satloff, as well as from the many other analysts who've been affiliated with The Washington Institute. I'm proud to say your former deputy director, John Hannah, is now my assistant for national security affairs. And you can't have him back yet. John and his staff are on duty night and day, and with his leadership, they're doing a tremendous job. I'm pleased to be among the many participants in the conference, a group that includes your key noter, Walid Jumblatt, from Lebanon. I've met with Mr. Jumblatt on a number of occasions, and I admire the courageous stand he's taking for freedom and democracy in his home country. This is a period of great consequence for the Middle East, and, as always, The Washington Institute, under Rob Satloff's leadership, is providing a forum for calm, nonpartisan, rigorous discussion. For twenty-two years, you've brought clear and careful thinking to bear on some of the most complex and vital issues of the age. You've provided a venue for many fine scholars, and you've hosted countless forums for the sharing of ideas and discussions. It's an enormously productive enterprise, and your work is more relevant and useful today than ever before. All of us respect The Washington Institute for its high standards of research, study and insight. And so, for both myself and for the president, I want to congratulate the men and women of the Institute on the exceptional work that you do each and every day. You're focused on many of the same matters that make up a good deal of our time in the White House, starting with the intelligence briefing that I have with the president every morning. In nearly every category of national interest, what happens in the Middle East is of direct concern to the people of the United States. The region is home to important allies, valued friends and trading partners. Its resources and commercial routes are at the very heart of the global economy. Its history and its holy sites have deep meaning to hundreds of millions of people in many, many countries. And, of course, across the broader Middle East -- from the Sinai Peninsula to the Arabian Sea, to the Iraqi desert, to the mountains of Afghanistan -- many thousands of our fellow Americans are on military deployments. As a nation of influence and ideals, the United States has been engaged in the Middle East for generations. Our goal is peace among its many nations, and a lasting stability that benefits all the world. And the stability we seek is not the kind that simply keeps a lid on things. Real stability, long-term stability, depends on giving men and women the freedom to conduct their own affairs and to choose their own leaders. This, we believe, offers the only real chance of resolving the underlying problems of the region, and of lifting the hopes of all who live there. As President Bush has said, so long as the Middle East "remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export." The ideological struggle that's playing out in the Middle East today -- the struggle against radical extremists -- is going to concern America certainly for the remainder of our administration, and well into the future. On September 11, 2001, we suffered a heavy blow, right here at home, at the hands of extremists who plotted the attacks from an outpost thousands of miles from our shores. Since that terrible morning, Americans have properly called this a war. For their part, the terrorists agree. The difference is they began calling it a war a good many years prior to 9/11. And they've been waging that war with clear objectives, aggressive tactics, and a strategy they want to carry out at any cost. They've stated their objectives. The terrorists want to end all American and Western influence in the Middle East. Their goal in that region is to seize control of a country so they have a base from which they can launch attacks and wage war against governments that do not meet their demands. Ultimately they seek to establish a totalitarian empire through the Middle East, and outward from there. They want to arm themselves with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons; they want to destroy Israel; they intimidate all Western countries; and to cause mass death here in the United States. The tactics, of course, are familiar to all the world: suicide attacks, car bombs, beheadings, messages of violence and hatred on the Internet, and the hijackings of 9/11. And the strategy is clear, as well: Through acts of stealth and murder and spectacular violence, they intend to frighten us and to break our will; to hit us again and again until we run away. It's not easy for a civilized society to comprehend evil like that of Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri. It shocks us to hear such men exhorting other people's sons to "join a caravan" of so-called martyrs, proclaiming that heaven favors the merciless and murder is the path to paradise. They've chosen this method because they believe it works, and they believe the history of the late twentieth century proves the point. During the 1980s and '90s, as terror networks began to wage attacks against Americans, we usually responded, if at all, with subpoenas, indictments, and the occasional cruise missile. As time passed, the terrorists believed they'd exposed a certain weakness and lack of confidence in the West, particularly in America. Dr. Bernard Lewis explained the terrorists' reasoning this way: "During the Cold War," Dr. Lewis wrote, "two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: 'What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?'" End quote. Not surprisingly, the terrorists became more ambitious in their strikes against American interests, choosing ever bigger targets, racking up a higher body count. In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 of our servicemen. Thereafter, the U.S. withdrew from Beirut. In Mogadishu in 1993, terrorists killed 19 Americans, and thereafter, the U.S. withdrew its forces from Somalia. This emboldened them still further, confirming their belief that they could strike America without paying a price, and more than that, they concluded that by violence they could even change American policy. We had the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; the attack on U.S. facilities in Riyadh in 1995; the murder of servicemen at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; and, of course, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000; ultimately, September 11 and the loss of nearly 3,000 lives inside the United States in the space of a few hours. In a violent world, the safety of distance was suddenly gone. And with grave new dangers directly in view, the strategic situation changed fundamentally. From the morning of 9/11, we have assumed correctly that more strikes would be attempted against us. So we have made enormous changes to harden the target and to better prepare the nation to face this kind of emergency. We've reorganized the government to protect the homeland, and put good people in charge of big responsibilities. One of them is Judge Michael Mukasey, who presided over the trial of the blind sheikh and has a profound grasp on the work at hand. Judge Mukasey had his confirmation hearing this past week. He did a superb job. I believe he'll make an outstanding attorney general.